Why the Democrats Are Losing

Posted on Feb 17, 2010

If you want to be honest, face these facts: At this moment, President Barack Obama is losing, Democrats are losing and liberals are losing.

Who’s winning? Republicans, conservatives, the practitioners of obstruction and the tea party.

The two immediate causes for this state of affairs are a single election result in Massachusetts, and the way the United States Senate operates. What’s not responsible is the supposed failure of Obama and the Democrats to govern as “moderates.”

Pause to consider where we would be if a Democrat had won January’s Massachusetts Senate race. In all likelihood, health reform would be law, Democrats could have moved on to economic matters, and Obama would be seen as shrewd and successful.

But that’s not what happened, and Republican Scott Brown’s victory revealed real weaknesses on the progressive side: an Obama political apparatus asleep at the switch, huge Republican enthusiasm unmatched by Democratic determination, and a focused conservative campaign to discredit Obama’s ideas, notably his economic stimulus plan and the health care bill.

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The Obama administration argues that both the stimulus and the health bill are better than people think. That’s entirely true, and this is actually an indictment—it means that on the two big issues of the moment, Republicans and conservatives are winning an argument they should be losing.

The dreadful Senate is a major culprit here, and that’s why Sen. Evan Bayh’s complaints in explaining his retirement rang partly true, but also partly false. What’s true is that the Senate isn’t working. What’s false is that there is no room for moderation. The fact is that the legislative outcomes on both the stimulus and health care were driven by moderates.

Economists agree that the stimulus worked, but Senate moderates made it less effective by shrinking its size and including irrelevancies—notably $70 billion to fix the alternative minimum tax—that did little to create jobs. The moderates got their way because the stimulus needed 60 votes, an absurd standard now that we have an ideologically polarized, parliamentary-style party system. We can waste time mourning that development, or we can recognize it and act accordingly.

On health care, months of delay in a futile quest for Republican support got the Democrats the worst of all worlds. The media gave them no credit for reaching out to the other side but did blame them for an ugly, gridlocked process.

The demands of moderate Democrats for concessions—remember the politically lethal Nebraska payoff for Sen. Ben Nelson?—made the process look even seamier. The bill’s conservative opponents shrewdly focused on such side issues and on made-up issues like the “death panels.”

Nobody wants to admit that on health care the moderates won all the big fights. Single-payer was out at the start. The public option died. A Medicare buy-in died. The number of Americans who would be covered shrank. The insurance companies held on to their antitrust exemption. If a bill eventually becomes law—as it must if the Democrats are not to look like a feckless, useless lot—the final proposal will be much closer to the moderate Senate version than to the more progressive bill passed by the House.

And if the Republicans refuse to cooperate, this will not mean that the bill isn’t moderate. It will mean only that Republicans refuse to vote for a moderate bill.

But even if all the media talk about the “failure of moderation” is nonsense, this doesn’t get liberals or Obama off the hook.

While liberals were arguing about public plans and this or that, and while Obama was deep into inside deal-making, the conservatives relentlessly made a straightforward public case based on a syllogism: The economy is a mess. Obama and the Democrats are for big government. Big government is responsible for the mess. Therefore the mess is the fault of Obama and the Big Government Democrats.

Simplistic and misleading? Absolutely. But if liberals and Obama are so smart, how did they—or, if you prefer, “we”—allow conservatives to make this argument so effectively? Why do the mainstream media give it so much credence?

Of course, I think the conservatives’ argument is wrong. But at this point, I have to admire their daring and discipline. Moderate and progressive Democrats alike have eight months between now and this fall’s elections to change the terms of the debate and prove they can govern. Otherwise, they’ll be washed out by a tidal wave.

We only have two parties. Well, one and a half. The only way Americans can show their displeasure with the prevailing party is to vote it out. Even if it means shooting ourselves in the foot to make a point. Why don’t we take over the Democratic Party and get more decent, hard fighting Progressives elected? Sounds good…but the local Democratic Party Machines have it set up such that it’s next to impossible for anyone except their mainstream candidates to get elected. That is, if you want backing. Corporate backing, that is.

Most here (excluding this article’s author, who knows it for a fact) appear to at-least suspect the entire ‘operation’ is nothing but a shell-game. So how come just about everybody still seems to think the damned ‘pea’ just has to be somewhere? It ain’t.

Alas, Barack Obama is weak, timid and terrified of giving offense to his Republican
tormentors. He has three years left to prove himself a worthy opponent of worms
like Mitch O’Connell, John Boehner and the barnyard animals at FoxNews.
Meanwhile, he can keep inviting his enemies to join him at the White House to
watch the Superbowl in a futile attempt to win them over. He seems to have
forgotten that he is the most powerful man on earth, with extraordinary tools of
principled coercion at his command. I fear he will never use them. I lay the blame
for Democratic Party impotence at his feet.

Alas, Barack Obama is weak, timid and terrified of giving offense to his Republican
tormentors. He has three years left to prove himself a worthy opponent of
obstructionists like Mitch O’Connell, John Boehner and the barnyard animals at
FoxNews. Meanwhile, he can keep inviting his enemies to join him at the White
House to watch the Superbowl in a futile attempt to win them over. He seems to
have forgotten that he is the most powerful man on earth, with extraordinary
tools of principled coercion at his command. I fear he will never use them. I lay
the blame for Democratic Party impotence at his feet.

Alas, Barack Obama is weak, timid and terrified of giving offense to his Republican
tormentors. He has three years left to prove himself a worthy opponent of
obstructionists like Mitch O’Connell, John Boehner and the barnyard animals at
FoxNews. Meanwhile, he can keep inviting his enemies to join him at the White
House to watch the Superbowl in a futile attempt to win them over. He seems to
have forgotten that he is the most powerful man on earth, with extraordinary
tools of principled coercion at his command. I lay the blame for Democratic Party
impotence at his feet.

Republican FRAME; just because one Democrat lost in Massachusetts, doesn’t constitute an automatic win for the Republicans that tore down the country.

The last thing I want is another Bush scenario with Republicans, as empty rhetoric is all Republicans have to offer the populace.

I have been disappointed to some extent, but I haven’t given up on President Obama. I think the Democratic Party will be much better after the Primaries are out of the way. The Democratic Party will continue holding power and corporations will slowly lose their fascist hold on the Democratic Party.

Corporations have a firm grip on the Republican Party, much stronger than the Democratic Party. Of the two political parties, the only party capable of breaking free of the corporate grip is the Democratic Party and I am expecting the Liberals to overcome.

“The currently prescribed role of the Dems is to be the “Party of the People.”

First I would disagree to an extent with your first sentence above. It seems to me that the Dems started to lose the rank and file around the 60’s.

The ideals of the working class Democrat of the 1950’s was not in sync with the hard left policies of the Stalinists who had spent a couple of decades already infiltrating the intellectual classes of America in an attempt to teach their doctrine in the classroms. An understanding of this can be gained by reading the book “Gramscian Damage” and reading the declassified Venona files.

My family had always voted Democratic, being a rural family, but now there is hardly a trace of a Democrat in the bunch. They simply had no love for the emerging far-left Harvard/Berkeley intellectual elitism that was taking over the party. I think this is what has cost the Democratic party most of its support from the working class people, other than the big unions, who would vote Democratic just to show their hatred for Republicans.

However, I have to agree with most posters who say that the answer is not left/right or democrat/republican. Those old labels are not serving us well anymore.

Unless, of course, you are MarthaA, who along with her alter-ego, ThomasG, have taken labeling to the ultimate level with such entries as:

Regarding Red Harvest’s declaration: “But they Democrats) can’t attain or retain office without cash flow from the very corporations that are the people’s worst enemy.”

Just because someone donates cash to a politician does not mean they own him. The problem comes in where you have career politicians who must suck up to money to retain their career. Simple solution, term limits and career limits.

Since the people keep voting for the same old deadbeats, it is hard not to think that the problem is not the people themselves. Wake up and vote them out regularly, for no reason at all. Let it be known that there is no such thing as a career in government. That is not what the founders had in mind anyway, as far as I can determine.

If there was regular turnover, many of the problems related to money in politics would disappear. It is career politicians and career bureaucrats who cause most of the problems. So the bureaucrats would have to have career limits also. No fat pensions either, so there would be an incentive to maintain some real skills to fall back on when your career is over.

E.J., I am afraid you are misundersetimating the rank stupidity of the American
people. O course the vicious, lying Repugs will oppose Obama regardless of what
he presents. they are not Americans but traitors. They continue to distort and
obstruct everything the man is trying to do, and most people just swallow their
lying B.S..
We dont deserve this good man as our president.

The american people deserve the Mittster and Sara Palin.
They are both vicious and vile liars and as such would fit right in with the rest of
our values-starved corpacracy.

In actuality, it is the American public who is losing. Any politician who bases their campaign financing on K Street lobbyists has no interest in serving the American people. So, the race for seats between the Dems and Reps is meaningless.

Publicly funded elections are the only salvation with a reversal of the Supreme Court ruling allowing unlimited commercial time for bought candidates.

Without this, there is no democracy in America and all the elections are meaningless.

QUITE BLAMING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND PUT THE BLAME FOR THIS BS SQUARELY ON THE REPUBLICANS WHERE IT BELONGS!!!!!

Americans claim to admire the man who holds his head high and stays calm under fire. The truth is, we admire the man who kicks ass, even if he’s wrong.

Even white people who were disgusted with King George would shake their heads in admiration of the little dumbass because he could be an international asshole and still smile about it all. We admired Clinton for the same reasons.

They loved Obama when he was their smiling campgaining darkie, but he’s NOT LAUGHING NOW BECAUSE AIN’T SHIT FUNNY.

Being at war in two, make that three different countries (I guess we’re adding Pakistan to the list now). Trying to get the economy back online at home and get people back to work. Dealing with the outright racist attacks from the GOP and still having to work with the bastards anyway despite their determination to be the Part of NO.

None of this is funny and people are suffering. If we’re not bombing people abroad then folks at home, are quite literally, out in the cold this winter and hungry.

And the Republicans don’t give a shit, but yet and still everyone blames the Democrats - despite the fact that half of them are DINO’s and the other half are too new and too few to fight all the Republicans and Reagan Democrats too.

Al Franken is the only representative worth his salt in the whole damn caboodle. Sherrod Brown is the only Senator with a lick of sense.

Now if we can fill the Congress and Senate with more like them, then AND ONLY THEN will we ever get anything done for the betterment of this country.

E.J.—you were told months ago to stop spinning for Obama, that it wasn’t
helping. So you and the rest of the barking “progressives” (whatever that
means) should really take a lot of this responsibility. Yet you continue…

It is clear from your assessment that Obama failed because he was too
moderate. I would say, too corporate and too corrupt by association. Not too
liberal.

The republicans and conservatives are winning the argument because, perhaps,
the argument is true in most ways. All the sane “progressive” arguments of the
campaign, such as the public option, that Obama won the country, and the
independents on, disappeared in a shameful suckup to Wall Street. He will
NEVER be forgiven for that, no matter how much more he spins. Obama and
the party are now paralyzed. (Clinton made a temporary recovery because he
was ready and willing to clean out the undesirables in his cabinet. We have the
list…. Obama turns a deaf ear.)

Democrats are losing the argument because it is a lousy argument. They
managed to make people fear them more than the crooked insurance
companies. Nice job. The spinning is just making it so much worse. It really
needs to stop. Its not working.

The Democrats and Obama are losing because the economy is in lousy shape. The American people are not sophisticated in their politics, and pay little attention to them. Check out the audience size for the cable news shows.

Calling people liberals, moderates, conservatives, democrats appears a ruse. Description, on the other hand, of all they do or say, proffers an elucidation.

Socalled liberals [?all] oppose universal health care, right to be informed and bodily formed.
They deny peace to iraqis, afghanis, iranians. They also deny the right to US soldiers to live and americans ‘free’ higher education.

‘Free’ higher education wld actually never be free because well-educated people wld more than pay back the cost of their education.
However, an education, and particularly an enlightening one, wld definitely reduce the powers of the minority of people. Thus, the denial! tnx

For a WaPo writer to begin a column with “If you want to be honest…” is rich. For a useful antidote to this kind of band-clogging drivel, please see Harvey Wasserman’s recent essay “Weimar Democrats”. There is more truth contained in the opening paragraphs than Dionne has probably managed in the past six months. To wit:

Massachusetts again reminds us why the Democrats are such losers.

They are terminal schizophrenics, driven mad by the corporate dominance of American politics. They cannot govern and make significant change at the same time because the system is geared to make this impossible.

Somehow, this core problem must be fixed, or we are lost as a nation, and probably as a species.

The currently prescribed role of the Dems is to be the “Party of the People.” But they can’t attain or retain office without cash flow from the very corporations that are the people’s worst enemy.

They are thus politically bi-polar. They can never offer meaningful cures for any of America’s real problems because they must always return to the trough of the corporations that cause the bulk of them.

Expecting Democrats to materially change their ways is about as realistic as asking a guard dog chained in the front yard to stop being so obsequiously obedient to its master. What part of “owned” does Dionne fail to comprehend?

When talking about “moderates”, is he talking about “moderate Left democracy” or “moderate Right autocracy”? Everyone to the Left of Center is the politically Liberal, and was called Liberal, before Liberal was made a dirty word by the Consesrvatives, and everyone to the Right of Center is the politically Conservative; so it is of utmost importance to explain what political side of “moderate” is being talked about here, there isn’t just one “moderate” , unless of course E.J. Dionne is one of the “One World Order” DLC autocratic Republican-Lite Conservative Right-Wing Autocratic “moderates”.

When talking about “moderates”, is he talking about “moderate Left democracy” or “moderate Right autocracy”? Everyone to the Left of Center is the politically Liberal, and was called Liberal, before Liberal was made a dirty word by the Conservatives, and everyone to the Right of Center is the politically Conservative; so it is of utmost importance to explain what political side of “moderate” is being talked about here, there isn’t just one “moderate” , unless of course E.J. Dionne is one of the “One World Order” DLC autocratic Republican-Lite Conservative Right-Wing Autocratic “moderates”.

Obama hasn’t lied, though the press interprets his words in ways they want, and his followers listen more to the press than to him. I’m amazed anything gets done and have always believed our “country” is not fixable. Clinton made a $100 million when he left, that’s the prize, that’s where Obama’s looking. We knew this was coming, we knew when they continuously let education spiral out of control. Now you have a populace bent on self serving choices that will destroy us. Until we officially hit bottom, I’m not looking up for anyone.

The election in Massachusetts told us about the dissatisfaction people felt with Obama. That is a more apt description than to say it was the cause for the state of affairs (Democrats are losing and liberals are losing). The first commenter on this thread, Russian Paul tells it the way it is as do other commenters who make more sense than Dionne.
No matter how you look at the all the talk about Right and Left is futile. Money rules. Obama was put in by the corporations/Wall Street who knew that 2008 was a Democratic year as to the election and not because he could solve any problems that might be to the advantage of the American people. If this is an indication of columns to come E.J. Dionne should go to Fox News or just disappear, now.

Dionne just doesn’t get it. We have a political system that is so is so dysfunctional and off course that, as it all steams toward the iceberg, the arguments between the “liberals,” the “moderates,” and the “conservatives,” are whether or not they should fasten down the deck chairs, how many they should fasten down, or whether they should be fastened down at all. All clueless and meaningless babble avoiding the reality of that iceberg looming ahead.

The Democratic party is terminally feckless and neurotic anyway. There are beyond redemption. All they do is put a happy face on the status quo and call it “change.”

Not that the Republicans are any better. No leaders there, as far as I can tell, other than the entertaining buffoons like Palin and Limbaugh. Of course there is alway John Boehner, the Ted Baxter of the party and other assorted lightweights. I don’t know where they stand other than for making sure Obama fails so they can regain power.

Our politics have become a “Survivor” episode where everyone cheers one person, one party, one group or the other and waits to see who gets voted off the island. Its all about who “wins"and who “loses.” “Righties” vs. “lefties” vs “moderates”

EJ Dionne sounds like so many delusional Democrats, blind idiots who simply refuse to recognize that the progressive base was taken for a ride last election, and over the past year it has been thoroughly pushed out of the picture. The message is clear: corporations rule. Yet Dionne is has not yet noticed! Let’s face it, there is no realistic way to spin the Senate healthcare bill as anything but an utter disaster. Obama’s cave-in on the environment is an even bigger disaster, his military escalation is obscene, and his economic policies are a disgrace. So today we get a deficit commission whose Democratic head earned over half a million per year to serve on the Board of Morgan Stanley (we can only imagine what the Republicans on the Commission will insist on).
McCain might as well have won the election; at least progressives would still have their dignity. Dionne obviously lost his dignity long ago.

Obama is failing because he postured as a Democrat to get elected and operates like a Republican in office.
Republicans want to win—it serves them to oppose Obama—even when Obama promotes the corporate policies they approve, since both parties compete for the same big bucks. The public does not approve and it serves the Republicans to have the Democrats promote unpopular policies at odds with their base and campaign rhetoric. The Democrats seek “bi-partisanship” to provide themselves political cover by spreading the blame. When they can’t count on Republican obstructionism, they provide the same effect within their own party. We know that the party can exert disciplne through various threats and incentives—in fact it has been used exclusively on progressives actually representing the majority of the public preference, but they whine and wring their hands that those obstructionists in their own party are the problem. It is pretty clear, like in the case of healthcare, that Obama’s preferences were neither the most economical or aligned with the public interest. For that reason he had to pressure behind the scenes rather than loudly advocating against single-payer, the public option, medicare extentions, opposing individual states pushing single-payer, slashing medicare as “waste”, betraying women’s health issues and sneaking in McCain’s tax proposal.

It is hard to be patient with this tool/fool, Dionne, because the superficial lens through which he views issues are tainted by partisan bias—blinding him to any truth. If Obama promoted Republican policy while throwing rhetorical bones, claiming to hold opposing views, Dione would still be carrying water despite the evidence.

I’m quite sure we would not be singing the blues right now if we had a competent President.

We needed a real Democrat in the White House—someone who would, for example, have demanded a public option, stuck with it, twisted arms, used favorable polling, and got the job done. Obama is clearly clueless about all these things. We seem to have wound up with another inept neocon.

I add my voice to the chorus wondering why TD wastes our time with such apologies for incompetent govt. The Duopoly that runs this nation leaves its citizens in the lurch while benefiting only the wealthiest among us.

The Massachusetts race, had Coakley won, would have changed absolutely nothing about the state of health care reform. We aint gonna get it until we elect people not enslaved to corporate money.

Russian Paul, February 18 at 3:22 am;
You’re close and you’re right; the democrats aren’t
losing and the republicans aren’t losing; pharma,
corporations and the upper 5% aren’t losing.
The American people are the ones who are losing,
they’re the only ones who are losing.
In my nearly 65 years I’ve never seen this country so
fractured, so completely busted; busted in every
sense of that word and on every level of
understanding.
We’ve fallen overboard and grabbed the anchor.

The above comment from RP is spot on. I’ll add that what makes this article so ridiculous (along with the rest of the mainstream media… you’re in prestigious company Dionne, for whatever that’s worth) is that not once was their ANY HINT of questioning who would be benefiting by the very fact that the Democrats are currently seen as not being able to get anything done: the benefactors are without question going to be the Republican party. You remember, right? The same party who ran our government into the ground along with whatever was left of good will towards the US during the last eight years?

The Democrats and Republicans are two sides to the same coin. If we actually lived in a democracy, at least a couple of things would happen that are relevant here:
1) one side of the coin would not blindly benefit merely because of the other side’s failures (perceived or otherwise)
2) so-called reporters and so-called media outlets wouldn’t be obediently following along in helping to make that outrageous scenario a reality.

If truthdig is going to continue to support this rubbish from WashPo I’m outta here!

1/3 of the stimulus was tax cuts, yet we continue to shed jobs with no relief in sight. It’s a no-brainer why the stimulus is a failure.

The only ones who “won” on health care were the profiteering insurance industry and PhRMA. And of course the politicians that serve them. Progressives never really had a chance to debate the moderates whom you claim victory for, since single payer never even had a seat at the table! How arrogant!

You’re absolutely right Mr. Dionne… Obama and the Democrats did not fail to govern as “moderate”, but that’s not the “hope and change” they were elected for.

Why the Democrats Are Losing? They are trying to please all the people all the time (including their lobbyists). This is why Democrats can’t get anything done and this is why the left needs to break off from these moderate corporocrats. Re: liberals, I would say that you were right in saying ‘they’ and not ‘we’. “The failure of moderation” does get those of us who voted independent a clear conscience if not “off the hook”.

It’s because of “journalists” like Dionne that the American public is so
misinformed and ignorant. The Democrats aren’t losing, they are WINNING along
with the Republicans. They are the same party, the corporate party. This isn’t
about right or left. True conservatives and true liberals barely exist in this country
anymore. The corporations control everything the US does, just follow the money
and you’ll know whither to trust a particular source or candidate. This is so
painfully obvious, only a fool or a deceiver like EJ Dionne could deny this.